


a not admitting of the wound

by susiecarter



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Extended Universe, Justice League (2017)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extra Treat, M/M, Magical Artifacts, Major Character Injury, Post-Canon, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 04:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18792907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: Clark's trying to rescue Bruce. Except it turns out Bruce is trapped in his own head, busy trying to rescue Clark—and failing, over and over and over. And he doesn't seem to want to stop, no matter what it's doing to him to keep trying.





	a not admitting of the wound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Panny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panny/gifts).



> There was no way I could resist writing something for your request, Panny—I tossed a bunch of your freeforms in a pile and stirred, and I just hope you enjoy the result. :D Happy Hurt/ComfortEx!

 

 

 _A not admitting of the wound_  
_until it grew so wide_  
_that all my Life had entered it_  
_and there were troughs beside—_

—from "[A not admitting of the wound](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56455/a-not-admitting-of-the-wound-1188)" by Emily Dickinson

 

 

By the time the fighting's over, Clark knows exactly where to go.

Bruce was here somewhere; they'd learned that much already. Here somewhere, imprisoned, and not answering over comms, no matter how many times they signaled him. Which meant either his equipment had broken down or was blocked (not probable, but possible), or every communication device he had on him had been taken from him (definitely unlikely), or—

Or there was another reason he couldn't answer.

But as soon as Clark had come in for a landing, met the first startled burst of gunfire with a much-too-satisfying punch, he'd been listening. And wherever he is, Bruce's heart is still beating.

Clark says, "I'm going in," and doesn't wait for acknowledgment from the rest of the League. He follows the sound down into the compound, clinging through the rush of wind in his ears to keep hold of it—looks through the walls, trying to guess which corridor is going to take him there the fastest. He can see Bruce, too. Prone, which would worry Clark more if it weren't for that heartbeat. Tied down, Clark assumes, and whatever the restraints are made of, however it is they work, Bruce hasn't found a way out of them yet.

He doesn't bother looking any more closely. He speeds along in a rush of air, coming to a stop with the cape swirling around him, already reaching for Bruce's wrists—

Except there's nothing there. No straps, no chains, nothing. Bruce isn't looking at him. He hasn't moved at all. He's just lying there, silent, face slack.

Drugged, Clark thinks immediately, with a sick little jolt. Bruce hates being drugged; he's going to be pissed, in that closed-up icy way it took Clark ages to even recognize as pissiness—

And that's when he notices the light.

He'd thought at first it was just a lamp. The sort of thing villains hung over the gleaming metal tables they strapped people onto. He hadn't paid it any more attention than that.

But it's not a lamp at all. It's a—an orb.

Glowing, obviously, which is probably bad; and hovering, which is worse. Magic. And the pale violet threads of light spilling from it are seeping _into_ Bruce. His head, mostly. Right through the cowl and into his temples, his scalp. And the backs of his eyelids are glowing the same color.

Clark swallows. He squints a little, looking not just for Bruce but through him. And what he sees is—it would almost be pretty, if it weren't so frightening. Coils of violet light, brilliant shimmering loops of it, tangling right through Bruce's brain.

That can't possibly be good.

"Bruce," he says, and touches Bruce's shoulder, just in case it'll work. Just in case this is something Bruce can wake up from on his own.

But Bruce doesn't react at all. It's weird, the way he feels under Clark's hand: limp, without tension. Like some kind of sick parody of relaxation; because if it were real, if there were even a sliver of a chance Bruce could fall asleep or be this thoroughly at ease within arm's length of Clark, that would be—

But it isn't. He isn't. It's the orb, doing something to him. Clark just has to figure out what.

And then Bruce's heartbeat changes.

Bruce moves, an involuntary jerk of muscle; a little half-breath of air's punched out of him, and his heart picks up. Picks up, and then it—

It stops.

" _Bruce_ ," Clark says, gripping his shoulder—too hard, it's got to be too hard. He should—CPR, or something, except even normal people doing CPR break ribs half the time. Even if Clark gets a pulse back, he's not going to be able to keep it there without equipment, medical professionals, a hospital—

Bruce's body spasms again—even more unsettling, with the profound silence where his heartbeat ought to be ringing in Clark's ears.

But then, impossibly, there's a low strained thump. Another. Three, four. Ten.

Once Clark's count reaches thirty, he forces his fingers to stop crumpling the high-tech weave over Bruce's chestplate. Not a fluke. Probably. Bruce is still alive.

And it must have been the orb. Right? Bruce's heart didn't do that for the fun of it. It's doing something to him. Looking for something, maybe; some kind of magical interrogation drone, rummaging through Bruce's head, and it bumped his brainstem a little too hard on the way. Or it was on purpose. Someone controlling the orb remotely, somewhere else in this labyrinth of a facility—plugged into Bruce somehow, questioning him. And stopping his heart for a second, when they got an answer they didn't like.

Whatever it is that's happening, Clark can't let it _keep_ happening. How many times can Bruce go through that before it does some kind of damage? How many times has it _already_ happened, while they were busy looking for him, or up there fighting?

There's got to be some way to shut the damn orb off. Clark keeps a hand on Bruce's shoulder, just in case Bruce can feel it—just in case it might help. And he reaches for the orb with the other.

Maybe he can figure out where the light's coming from. Disconnect the threads trailing down into Bruce, or discover a way to make them let go; close his hand around it, and crush the whole damn thing into dust. That's all he's thinking, as he reaches.

But the moment he touches it, the surface cool and smooth as glass against his fingertips, everything changes.

That violet light blazes up, brilliant. Clark squints and twists his face away, but it doesn't help, the brightness overwhelming, flooding his whole field of vision. And then—

It's not that the air around him moves. There's no rush, no sound. But he feels a lurch of speed anyway, somehow; like taking off from unsteady ground, the swoop in his stomach, the brief spin of disorientation. And then he's somewhere else.

 

 

He doesn't recognize any of it at first. He's just trying to take stock of where he is. Not the lab or whatever where he'd found Bruce, not anymore. The violet light is gone; everything is dim, a little hazy. He did _land_ here, wherever "here" is. And one knee, his fists, have come down on—stone? Concrete, maybe. Damp, cracked. He draws an absent breath, sheer habit, and almost coughs it out again, just because the air is so _wrong_. Too warm, full of dust or ash or something, smoke, and there's a sharp sting of ozone in Clark's nose.

And then he blinks and looks up, and does know where he is after all.

This is the bay. The port, but not the way it looks now. This is the way it looked the day he died.

He's almost expecting the bone-rattling roar. Whips his head around anyway, searching, and yes, there it is, the distant craggy figure of Doomsday, enraged. Clark rises up into the air, darts closer—not too close, though. He remembers what it was like, the lightning Doomsday had thrown.

It might not be able to hurt him. Whatever this is, some kind of vision or hallucination, a replayed memory the orb's trying to trap him in, it probably isn't physically real in the strictest sense. But—

But Bruce's heart had stopped. And Clark's not particularly eager to die here all over again.

He stops short, hanging in the air. Doomsday isn't alone. That's Diana, shield up, sword aglow, bright coil of the lasso at her waist. Diana, and—and _himself_ , another Clark, flying up past her to strike Doomsday in the chest and knock him back. And—

And Bruce.

Clark frowns a little.

Bruce is climbing one of the abandoned buildings. Clark remembers that happening at least once—not even looking for it, just hearing the scrape of a grapple, knowing it was Bruce.

But he's carrying the spear, too, lit up with the green glow of it.

That—that never happened, in the real world.

Bruce swings up higher, gets a foothold, pulls himself up onto the edge of a roof that's already half fallen in. Trying to get a good angle, so he can—what? _Jump_ on Doomsday? Who's he kidding?

But that must be the plan after all. Diana, the other Clark, they're cornering Doomsday, forcing him back a step at a time. Toward the building Bruce has scaled.

What the hell are they thinking? They shouldn't be helping Bruce do this, this is—this is _stupid_. Bruce is going to get himself flattened for no good reason.

"Bruce," Clark shouts, starting to dive, and that's when it happens.

Doomsday roars again, frustrated, angry. Diana's sliced his leg open, knee to ankle, and he reaches down to grab at her and she swipes half his hand off, too. He screams, hunkers back and flails—hits the building with his other arm, and Clark has one breathless frozen instant to see it happen, Bruce still crouched there in silhouette with that goddamn spear clutched in his hands, before it topples.

Bruce drops with it.

Clark hits the tumbling chunks of rubble full-speed—there's no reason he shouldn't be able to get in there, catch Bruce before he can hit the ground—

Except it's like he hits a wall. Or, not a wall, because a wall he could punch through; there's a flare of violet light he can't see past, and suddenly he's—he can't tell where he is, whether he's still moving. He can't do anything.

And then it's gone. When everything blinks back into focus around him, he's on his knees on a half-settled slab of concrete, dust still rising around him; Diana's shouting somewhere, and that thumping must be Doomsday. And Bruce—

Bruce is twenty feet away from him, gasping wetly, cement slanted at a frightening angle across his legs, pierced through just below the ribs by two pieces of rebar.

"Jesus Christ," Clark breathes. "Oh, god, Bruce—" and then, in a rush of air, the other Clark is there.

"Oh, god," he says, a belated echo. He doesn't look at Clark at all—he drops down beside Bruce, hands hovering uselessly over Bruce's chest, his shoulder. "I—I can—"

"Do it," Bruce grits out, and Clark swallows hard and squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn't need to watch the other Clark cauterize what he can; the legs first, if he's got any sense. And of course he can't risk melting the rebar inside Bruce—he has to pull it out first, and the sound is bad enough. The smell, that horrible scorched-meat smell, god—

"Okay," the other Clark says unsteadily.

"No," Bruce says, and Clark has to look then—has to look, and sees himself heft half a wall out of the way, expression weirdly strained.

Because the spear is underneath it.

"No—"

"I have to," the other Clark says, steeling himself, reaching for it. His hand is shaking, Clark can see it; Clark can remember exactly what it felt like, all the strength and certainty draining out of him, the sudden unfamiliar throb of _pain_. "I have to."

" _No_ ," Bruce bites out, low, ragged.

And the other Clark lifts the spear, and then turns, looks over his shoulder and meets Bruce's eyes. It still looks like Clark; it still seems like Clark. But Clark's suddenly sure it isn't him at all, standing there and telling Bruce gently, unmercifully, "You made this happen," before he turns away again, grips the spear and drags it outside.

Bruce lies there, fists clenched, jaw tight, in a pool of his own blood. There's a rumble of sound, Diana shouting again; a sudden, terrible blast of light, and Bruce screws his eyes shut and twists his face away, agonized. He was—he didn't look like that when he got _impaled_ —

Clark realizes, dimly, that he's just fucking standing around watching. "I— _Bruce_ ," he says, inane, helpless.

And the other Clark showed no signs of having noticed he was there. Diana never even looked up, outside. But Bruce sucks in an unsteady breath and opens his eyes, looks right at Clark, while out there beyond them somewhere the other Clark dies, and then—

 

 

Clark sucks in a breath, blinks, and looks up.

He's standing at one side of the port. Diana is there, sword in one hand, shield in the other—Bruce and the other Clark are at her shoulders. And in the distance somewhere, Doomsday roars.

"Is she with you?" the other Clark says.

"No," Bruce says quietly.

And that's not how this part happened either, but the other Clark doesn't seem aware of it. There's an attentive expression on his face for two or three beats longer than there should be—room left in the script for the line Bruce was supposed to deliver.

And then Doomsday's charging at them, and Bruce is already moving.

Clark remembers this, the blast of crackling energy Doomsday's about to unleash; he'd leaned into it, used an arm to shield his face more from the brightness of it than anything. The sound had been deafening, and he'd had a lot to worry about right then. He hadn't even thought to wonder where Bruce had gone.

Behind a pile of wreckage, it turns out. Bruce crouches in the lee of it, and doesn't look up when Clark follows him, doesn't acknowledge Clark at all.

But he heard Clark, right at the end there. He must have.

"Bruce," Clark says. "Bruce, what the hell _is_ this?"

Bruce doesn't move; but his jaw tenses up just a little.

"Bruce, look," Clark tries. "This isn't real. You have to know that. This already happened, it's over. You're trapped in here, there's—there's some kind of magical thing, and it's keeping you asleep. You have to—"

"Shut up," Bruce says, without looking at him, and the blast has already died away; he pushes himself up and runs.

Easy enough to keep pace with him, flying. Which Bruce is probably going to hate, Clark thinks, but—hell, maybe if he's mad enough, he'll snap out of this.

"You have to listen to me," Clark insists. "This isn't real. Bruce—"

"Of course it isn't," Bruce snaps, and drops to the ground, a split second before a stray fork of lightning crackles through the air where his head had been.

"What?"

And Bruce twists, in his crouch, and angles a glare up over his shoulder. "I remember."

So he knows. He knows this isn't how any of this happened. "Then why—"

Bruce doesn't wait for Clark to finish the question. He's already thrown the full weight of his attention back to the fight, Doomsday—the other Clark.

(Stupid, to feel a prickle of irritation over that. It's just that Clark's not used to needing to—to _ask_ for Bruce's attention.

He had it before he ever even wanted it; before he died, in all the wrong ways, and then after. Once they'd dealt with Steppenwolf, settled into the tentative beginnings of something Clark wants to be able to call friendship—Bruce still looked at him all the time, always seemed aware of him no matter where he was in the room. It's been months now, and still, still, at least half the time Clark looks at Bruce, Bruce was already looking at him first.

He hadn't realized how used to that he'd gotten, how much he relied on it. How much he _liked_ it—)

"Bruce," Clark says, but Bruce has stopped listening. He's already moving.

Clark doesn't even know what he's trying to do. He's working his way along an odd, zigzagging path. Not toward Doomsday, but not away. Not to a safe perimeter, not toward the spear.

But if he knows this isn't real, if he does remember this fight, then he knows what's going to happen next. And—that's it, Clark thinks, suddenly sure. This is the part where Diana threw herself at Doomsday, got a car thrown at her in return. And—next? Soon, at least—the other Clark's going to knock Doomsday into a skid, almost half the length of the whole port.

Bruce isn't trying to get to where Doomsday is. He's trying to get to where Doomsday's going to be, in about thirty seconds.

And what the hell does he think he's going to do when he gets there?

Clark shakes his head, frustrated—speeds up, reaches for Bruce's shoulder, and it's only as he's doing it that he remembers.

(Because this is just what Bruce had been doing the last time through: trying to get himself face-to-face with Doomsday, one way or another. And it had gone wrong, and when it had—

When it had, Clark hadn't been able to do anything. Bruce had fallen, and Clark hadn't been able to stop it.)

The violet light is there all at once, brilliant, blinding—not coming from anywhere, not anything Clark can dodge past, just _there_ , immediate, surrounding.

And this time when it clears, it's too late all over again.

Doomsday's right where Bruce had known he'd be, and Bruce has—has that gun in his hands, the one that shoots those shells of pressurized kryptonite dust. He's just fired it, Clark can see the glittering green cloud rising. He's just fired it at least half a dozen times, and it's working, but not fast enough.

He's taking aim again when Doomsday, still roaring in agony, finally spots him down there. Spots him and grabs for him, catches him up in one massive hand; Clark squeezes his eyes shut, half wants to cover his ears, but it wouldn't help.

He'd still be able to hear it, when half of Bruce's bones break at once.

Doomsday howls again, furious, and tosses Bruce aside. Clark throws himself into the air—has to, even knowing it won't work, and when the violet light sparks into being, washes his vision blank, he swears at it viciously.

By the time it's gone, Bruce has already landed, crumpled into a limp heap. Clark can see his chest moving, his throat; somehow, impossibly, he's still alive. God.

Doomsday has wheeled around and bellowed, and in the distance, there's a sudden flare of green light.

The other Clark, Clark realizes distantly. Picking up the spear.

Good, he thinks.

He can't—can't touch Bruce, couldn't figure out where it might be safe to put his hands even if the violet light would let him do it. He drops to his knees by Bruce's side instead, swallowing, and says, "Bruce. Oh, god, Bruce—"

Bruce's eyelids shift. His eyes open; and then they fall shut again, a thin rasping half-breath escaping from him, and then—

 

 

Clark takes a deep breath, and looks up.

He's at one side of the port, again. Diana is there, just the way she was before: sword in one hand, shield in the other. Bruce and the other Clark are standing at her shoulders—and in the distance somewhere, Doomsday roars.

"Is she with you?" the other Clark says, mild, and Clark squeezes his eyes shut and has never wanted to punch himself in the face so badly.

"Bruce," he says, interrupting.

Bruce doesn't look at him.

"Bruce, _please_ ," he says—but then Doomsday's there, about to loose that first blast, and if Bruce doesn't get out of the way, he'll—

He'll just die again.

Bruce heads for that chunk of wreckage again; and Clark lets the light wash over him, harmless—and at the absolute goddamn least, _not_ violet—and then follows.

"So," he says, once Bruce is safe, waiting it out. "What are you going to try this time?"

Bruce's jaw knots itself up tight, and he spares Clark a cutting sideways glance.

"Oh, come on," Clark says. "It wasn't that hard to figure out. How many times have you _done_ this? Bruce—"

"There must be a way," Bruce grits out.

"What?"

"There _must_ be," Bruce repeats, and before Clark can even think what to say, he's gone, headed for one of the buildings again.

And Clark had meant it, when he'd said it hadn't been hard to figure out: a loop, obviously. The fight, over and over. But it's right then, staring at Bruce's armored back with an unaccountable weight squeezing all the air from his chest, sick dread welling up inexorably, that Clark thinks he's really starting to understand.

The orb's not imprisoning Bruce here. _Bruce_ is. Or—that's why it's working. Because it let him pick, or it looked in his head and figured out what to do; how to keep him in here, stop him from waking up. Giving him this, a fight he can't win, and letting him fight it again. Again, and again, and again.

Because of course Bruce will do it. He'll run through it in his own head as many times as it takes, trying to figure out where he went wrong, why he couldn't take Doomsday down himself, do it faster or harder, better—trying to decide how to get it right.

 

 

Bruce only dies about half the time.

Buried in collapsing buildings, more often than not. He uses them to get height, speed, an angle he needs; but they're abandoned, unstable, and Doomsday's not interested in pulling his punches.

He drowns, a couple times. Knocked into the bay, or thrown—concrete pinning him down there until he runs out of air.

Crushed, rarely. Torn apart, a terrible and memorable once.

And Clark can't do a goddamn thing about any of it.

The world goes violet around him every time he tries. He keeps doing it anyway—he can't help it. Bruce won't _listen_ to him, isn't interested in talking about it. Figures, Clark thinks blackly, that he'd rather run off and find a new way to die instead.

The worst loop of all is the one where Doomsday gets his hands on the other Clark. Spreads whatever Luthor did to him, whatever alteration or infection got introduced to the Kryptonian baseline he'd started out as; the other Clark screams, spasming, and then he—he _changes_. Twice the height he should be, skin horribly distorted, uniform half-torn around the craggy growths and spikes of bone jutting out of him.

It's the other Clark who kills Bruce, that time. Gripping him, roaring, wordless—Bruce drives that goddamn spear into him, wet-eyed and silent, but the other Clark still has time to plunge one huge hand through Bruce's armor, _into_ his chest underneath—

Clark's sick with relief when that one ends, when he lowers his hand from his eyes and sees the port in front of him all over again. Jesus.

"Bruce," he says, pleading, as Diana and the other Clark start bracing themselves for Doomsday's first attack behind him. "Bruce, _please_. You don't have to keep doing this—"

"Yes," Bruce says, "I do."

"You _don't_ ," Clark says, and god, he wants to grab Bruce and shake him, but that's only going to bring back the light, only going to end with him shoved off to the side long enough for Bruce to come up with some new way to fail. "You don't. We—we did it, all right? We stopped Doomsday. That's the way it happened, and it _worked_."

Behind the cowl, Bruce's eyes fall shut. "I know," he says, so quietly Clark almost doesn't catch it over the sound of Diana's battle cry in the distance.

"Then why in the _hell_ are you—"

Clark stops short.

Bruce still isn't looking at him.

"You said you remembered. You said there had to be a way. But it isn't about defeating Doomsday, is it?" It's a fine line to draw, but—but Clark remembers the look on Bruce's face that very first time through, the sound of his hoarse ragged voice saying _No_.

Clark thought it himself: Bruce has only died about half the time. That's not what makes the scenario restart. Doomsday's death isn't it, either. The failure state that kicks them into a new loop is—

"You're trying to save me," Clark says. "The other Clark. He's—he always dies."

Bruce is silent.

"But," Clark says, baffled. "But I'm fine. Bruce, you brought me _back_. I'm fine. Everything's fine."

Bruce huffs half a breath through his nose, the soft, bitter ghost of a laugh. "Yes, of course. The optimal outcome: you, six feet under, dependent on the wildly unscientific whims of the obsessed maniac who started out trying to kill you himself." He stops, shakes his head—a quick dismissive flick. "There has to be something. I just have to figure out what it is."

"So you can do what? Tear yourself apart for not having done it? Bruce, it's _over_."

And Bruce looks at him at last—meets his eyes, with a sharp twist of the mouth Clark can't bring himself to call a smile. "Is it," he murmurs.

Clark swallows. He'd thought it was. He'd thought that was how they'd gotten as far as they had; because they'd both silently agreed to leave this day in the dust behind them.

But maybe the orb isn't doing half as much work as Clark thought it was. Maybe this isn't the first time Bruce has fought this fight all over again in his head. And—

Is this actually the way it would have gone, each time? Or is it Bruce? Making himself fight and—and not _letting_ himself win. Not willing to allow it, when he could keep punishing himself for his mistakes instead.

"Bruce," Clark says.

"You aren't real either, I assume," Bruce says. "The rest of this isn't. But I suppose some part of me has decided it's the least I can do, to offer you the satisfaction of spectating—"

"Satisfaction?" Clark shouts, and he didn't even mean to, dimly startled by the clench of his own fists, the hot burn of anger up the back of his throat, but— _jesus_. "Are you kidding me? You think I'm _enjoying_ this? You think I _like_ knowing you wish you'd saved me so badly you'd die a dozen times trying? Jesus Christ, Bruce." He makes himself stop, rubs a hand across his face, his hot stinging eyes. "I'm not—I'm not _glad_ you're doing this to yourself."

There's a beat of quiet. Not silence, quite, but it—it is quiet, Clark realizes slowly. Something's changed. Diana and the other Clark are still fighting Doomsday, but they're further away now than they were, the lights and sounds fainter, all of it pushed aside a little.

"I'm not glad," Clark says again, more softly.

Bruce doesn't say anything; but he's still looking at Clark. Watching him, with the barest furrow in his brow, eyes steady and intent.

"We haven't talked about it. I didn't think you wanted to. But maybe that was wrong—maybe I should have tried harder to make sure you knew that I—" He stops and bites his lip, feeling suddenly weirdly close to a cliff's edge he hadn't quite realized was there. "You didn't understand, you didn't know me. You were afraid. I didn't understand you either, for a while there, and I was afraid, too.

"You had the chance to kill me, but in the end you didn't take it. And now we're—we've made something good, something better than either of us. We're a team. We help each other. I—having to stand here and watch you like this isn't—"

"Clark," Bruce says, slowly, quietly, with a dawning note of something—suspicion? Uncertainty—Clark can't quite name it, but it's there.

"I'm not enjoying it," Clark insists, and he knows he shouldn't sound so—so frantic, so desperate, but out of everything he's been trying to say to Bruce this whole time, this suddenly feels like the most important. This suddenly feels like the thing he most needs Bruce to _hear_. "Do you understand? I'm not—that's the last thing I would ever—"

" _Clark_ ," Bruce repeats, sounding startled, urgent.

And suddenly, with all the quickness of a dream, the cowl's gone. The cowl's gone, and everything around them has blurred, vague and washed-out; a thousand miles away, maybe, some superheroes are fighting a genetically altered space monster, but that's all.

Clark reaches out, and this time there's no violet light, no sudden flare of emptiness taking him away. He'd tried—god, it felt like a hundred times, a thousand, hands outstretched to Bruce's broken body over and over again, knowing it wouldn't work but unable to stop himself. He just hadn't been able to stand it. He couldn't bear to let Bruce go without _doing_ something.

And Bruce hadn't been able to bear it with him, either.

Maybe he understands what Bruce was doing to himself in here better than he'd realized.

It might be that thought that makes him brave enough to do it: to touch Bruce's face, his jaw, newly bared. "I—Bruce," he hears himself say, inane, ridiculous, but Bruce hasn't pushed him away. Bruce is looking at him, looking at him the way Bruce always looks at him, and hasn't moved so much as an inch to evade his hand. "Bruce," he says again, and sucks in a breath, thumbs at the corner of Bruce's mouth and leans in, and—

 

 

—stumbles, balance briefly lost, in a whirling blaze of violet.

There's something in his hand. The orb, he realizes, blinking down at it: dulling even as he looks at it, opaque and gleaming. But there's no light coming out of it, none of those threads trailing down, and Bruce is—

Clark looks up. Bruce has come up off the table, settling to his feet. His gaze flicks briefly around the lab, or whatever this place is, and then to Clark.

And then, from the doorway, Barry says, "Hey! You found him."

"Yeah," Clark makes himself say. "Yeah, I did."

"Well, so, the thing is, there were a couple more guys in here than we realized? They were trying to scrub all their files or whatever—Victor managed to interface with their main system first, he got a bunch of it, but he also found out they'd set off a self-destruct."

"How much time?" Bruce says immediately, brisk.

"T minus about two minutes. Probably more like one and a half, by now," Barry says. "So."

"Okay," Clark says, and closes his hand around the orb—squeezes until it cracks apart, crumbles into crystalline chunks between his fingers.

"Let's go," Bruce says, and sweeps out into the corridor without looking back.

 

 

Clark goes to the lake house, after.

He has to talk himself into it. Somehow it was easier, in there, after—after seeing all that, stripped raw by it; he'd felt like he couldn't _stop_ himself, words just spilling out of him before he could swallow them down. Having the time, the space, to think it all over—having to choose to go see Bruce, on purpose—makes it ten thousand times harder.

But he can't stop remembering it.

— _to offer you the satisfaction of spectating_ —

Because apparently that's the kind of thing Bruce decides Clark is thinking, if Clark doesn't tell him otherwise. Trying to kiss him ought to be pretty goddamn unambiguous; but if anybody can come up with forty-five reasons why it meant anything but what it had actually meant, Clark thinks, it's Bruce.

So he goes to the lake house.

He hesitates for a moment, hovering over the water, the lake clear and still like glass beneath him—trying to decide where to go, to guess. Of course he could just listen for Bruce's heart; but it feels different, after—

After the last time he did that.

And then, as he's still hanging there uncertainly, there's a ripple. A ripple, a flow, movement. The entryway under the lake, opening up.

Bruce detected him. He should have expected that.

But—Bruce detected him, and opened a door for him. Clark swallows. That's—that has to be a good sign, right?

He touches down inside the Cave with his heart in his throat. And Bruce doesn't look up at him, but reaches out and holds something up in Clark's direction, unerring.

A mug.

"Milk, three sugars," he murmurs, and Clark laughs before he can think better of it and takes the tea.

"Thanks."

Bruce doesn't answer. Tilts his head a little, maybe, eyes flickering down and then back up to the gadget he's working on, absent acknowledgment. The thing is—a panel from the Knightcrawler, maybe, if Clark had to guess; it looks about the right width to have come off one of the legs.

Clark bites his lip and takes a sip of the tea, and doesn't taste it at all. "It was me in there," he hears himself say.

Bruce keeps working, and still doesn't look up.

"I know you thought I was just part of the—the vision, or whatever," Clark hastens to add, because proving he remembers the things they talked about while they were in there can only help his case. "But it was—that was me."

Bruce pries something up, adjusts it, forces it back into place. "I'd begun to think it might be," he says, very evenly.

And then he pauses, hands still outstretched, and sighs a little through his nose, and does look up after all.

It's a satisfying little jolt, something clicking back into place just like—just like whatever Bruce is fussing with on that panel, to have Bruce's eyes on Clark again. After Bruce had spent so many loops ignoring him, nothing Clark had said to him making one bit of difference, and every time Clark had tried to touch him, the light had stopped it—

Except the last time, Clark thinks, and can't convince even himself that the slow prickle of heat beneath his skin is because of the tea.

"Clark," Bruce says quietly. "I never intended—"

"Shut up," Clark says, before Bruce can really get started trying to somehow make this mess his own fault. Jesus.

Bruce raises his eyebrows, and for a second it's—everything's fine, back to normal: just Bruce and Clark talking in the Cave, feeling their way uncertainly toward something resembling ease; Bruce—Bruce _letting_ his face show what he's thinking, every now and then. Surprise in the lines around his eyes, the barest hint of amusement tucked into the corner of his mouth.

"I kept yelling at you in there because I didn't understand what you were doing. I didn't understand why. But it was—" Clark stops and bites his lip. "I couldn't stand it either."

Bruce is still staring at him; but he's frowning now. "Clark," he says, gentle.

"You died," Clark says. "Or you almost did. Before I even knew what was happening, when I found you in that lab, you were—your heart stopped. I didn't know what I was doing, but I had to do _something_. I couldn't let that orb kill you. That's why I touched it. That's how I ended up in there with you." And now it's his turn to look away, dodging Bruce's eyes—taking another sip of tea just for the excuse to hide his face a little. "So I could watch you die another twenty times," he adds unsteadily, and then laughs, even though it isn't funny at all.

"Clark," Bruce repeats, very softly, and reaches out. And the solid strength of his hand settling against the nape of Clark's neck—the _reality_ of it—makes Clark suck in a shaky breath.

"I couldn't stand it," he hears himself repeat. "That's why I—when I had the chance, I—I wanted you to understand. The kissing. The almost-kissing," he amends, because that was all it had been. The softest breath of a touch, Bruce's mouth against his, before the light had swept them both away. "I—you—if that's where we're drawing the line for 'obsessed maniac', then I think I let a couple wildly unscientific whims get the better of me, too."

And there it is, that cliff's edge gaping. Everything he's never quite been able to acknowledge about what exactly it's begun to mean to him to have Bruce's eyes on him, Bruce's heartbeat in his ears; Bruce himself, under his hands. He's not even sure which was worse, the times Bruce died or the times he didn't: either way, having to stand there and watch—not being able to _stop_ it—

Clark makes himself clear his throat. "I just wanted to explain, that's all."

But Bruce doesn't take the cue, doesn't let go of him. Clark is still waiting for it when he feels Bruce's fingers tangle in his hair instead, Bruce's forehead tipped in against his temple.

"Christ," Bruce breathes against his cheek, almost more to himself than to Clark, strange and wistful. "Clark, you—"

"Bruce," Clark murmurs back, and it feels like—it feels like the way he always says Bruce's name, the way he always _wants_ to: wondering, a little bewildered, insistent. Drawing Bruce's attention back to where Clark has always wanted it most, on the rare occasions he doesn't already have it.

He feels Bruce's free hand close around his wrist and relaxes against it, lets Bruce draw his hand up and—

And settle his palm against Bruce's shirt, his chest. Over his heart, until Clark can feel it there. All of it, the twitch of muscle, the steady solidity of Bruce's ribs beneath. The rush of blood, the pound of it. Alive.

He probably should've thought about it a little harder. He probably should've considered the evidence, the parallels; that each of them apparently found the other's loss so intolerable they couldn't help but do the stupidest thing they could think of. He should've decided there was a chance, and taken it.

But it's not like that at all. It's—he just _does_ it, blindly daring, helpless. Leans in and finds Bruce's mouth, and this time not for a breath, an instant's insubstantial magic. Furious, desperate—real.

And it's still hard to get his head around it. He knows, intellectually, what Bruce did when he was dead, how Bruce got the rest of them to help bring him back. But he didn't see it, and somehow it's always been a little difficult to imagine: Bruce argumentative, stubborn, difficult, sure. Bruce—overcome? Insistent, irrational. Desperate. _Bruce_.

He could never quite figure out what that might have looked like. But this, maybe, was how it might have _felt_ —because Bruce doesn't push him away, doesn't give him a carefully-composed bullet-pointed list of reasons this is a terrible idea. Bruce doesn't even stand there and let him, wait it out unmoving until Clark's done and then step away. He surges into Clark's hands, makes a soft wordless noise in his throat; grips Clark harder, presses closer, and kisses _back_.

Clark laughs against his mouth without meaning to, unsteady, bubbling over all at once. "So, three cheers for wildly unscientific—"

"Shut up," Bruce murmurs, and kisses him again.

 

 


End file.
